


Thunder

by brightblackholes



Category: Newsies (1992)
Genre: But he's not a child and very adamant about that fact, Past Character Death, Past Child Abuse, Snipeshooter is my child, Thunderstorms, lots of people have had bad thunder storm experiences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-02-18
Packaged: 2018-05-21 09:51:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6047185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightblackholes/pseuds/brightblackholes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The first rumble of thunder woke Snipeshooter up.  As the lightest sleeper of the newsies and always the first coherent enough to form words in the morning, it was his job to be lookout and wake Jack if a storm was large enough to wake some of the others."</p><p>A thunderstorm hits Manhattan, and this is how the newsies cope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thunder

**Author's Note:**

> I can't make titles.

The first rumble of thunder woke Snipeshooter up. As the lightest sleeper of the newsies and always the first coherent enough to form words in the morning, it was his job to be lookout and wake Jack if a storm was large enough to wake some of the others. For those who a lookout was required, it usually was. Tonight was definitely that kind of night, and Snipeshooter knew right away. The clouds made stars unseeable, even more so than the usual lights of the city, and the night was darker. Huge raindrops splattered on the roof, finally being released after being held hostage by the clouds. This storm had been brewing for days.

“Jack,” Snipeshooter whispered urgently. “Jack, wake up.”

“Wassamadda?” the older boy asked, turning over groggily and falling back asleep.

“Jack, there’s a storm!” Snipeshooter said, punching him in the arm.

“A storm?” Jack asked, sitting up and blinking a few times before rubbing his arm. (Snipeshooter was secretly proud that he had hit him hard enough to not only get him awake, but make him feel it. He wasn’t a kid anymore, anyway.) “Wake Mush while I get the candles.” He rubbed his eyes and stealthily jumped out of bed, met by another rumble of thunder.

“Mush. Mush. Mush. Mush. Mush!” Snipe whispered, shaking him roughly.

“Wha?” he asked, swatting at the younger boy’s hands, but opening his eyes and sitting up anyway.

“Storm’s here.” To prove his point, a grumble of thunder sounded. Kid Blink jerked awake on the top bunk. Snipeshooter swore under his breath.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Blink said, but his face was deathly white. The storm had already started bringing back memories of a time when he could see out of both eyes and the night where suddenly he couldn’t, memories he would rather forget. Storms made enough noise that the neighbors didn’t bother pounding on the thin apartment walls to get the shouting to stop, but the shattering of glass bottles was still the loudest sound he had ever heard, and he should have stayed curled in the corner or thrown himself out the window but--

“Hey,” Mush whispered, cutting into Blink’s thoughts. Blink jerked back before he could focus his good eye on him, standing at eye level by his pillow. “You’re in the lodging house now with your real family, the newsies.” Kid Blink nodded, but his mood didn’t ease as Snipeshooter moved to get a candle on the side table. Mush climbed into the top bunch, pushing Blink a bit to make room for himself to lie down and face him. They would stay like this for a while, like they always did during storms, when Blink was the most vulnerable.

Snipeshooter quickly moved to Itey and Snitch’s bunk. Snitch blinked up at him while he got the candle out of the drawer.

“How you holdin’ up?” Snipe asked.

“Been worse,” Snitch whispered. He didn’t look too bad, but Snitch was simultaneously the most honest newsie and one of the best liars. It was a weird juxtaposition that made him hard to understand.

“Ya wanna wake Itey up now? The storm’ll do it later, anyway,” Snipeshooter said. Snitch took a deep breath and reluctantly sat up. This was enough to start Itey on the road to consciousness, and when he rubbed his face to find that there wasn’t a foot pressed up against it and no Snitch-sized weight on it, he woke up.

“Snitch?” he sleepily asked.

“Storm’s here,” Snipeshooter stated. Itey understood and, like Mush, knew the drill well.

“You alright, Snitch?” he asked, sitting up and crossing his legs.

“It’s been five years,” he sighed. “I ain’t a kid no more.”

“That don’t mean anything. I’d still be sad after five years.” Five years since he became an orphan and a newsie. Rain can make the pavement really slick, after all, and sometimes a woman rushing home after a day of working to support her family alone doesn’t look for out of control trolleys before stepping into the street, and sometimes she gets hit and sometimes she leaves her son alone in their flat to read the headline in the newspaper the next day. Thunder sounded, and Snitch hadn’t been there, but he thought he could hear her scream underneath the rumble.

Snipeshooter moved on, making his way to the table he and Racetrack shared. Jack had already started his rounds to the other bunks, lighting candles that blanketed the room in a comforting glow. Newsies began to stir and wake, and in the light the steady beating of rain on the roof could be turned into a rhythmic lull rather than a warning of the storm. Snipe got out his candle at glanced up. Across the room, Bumlets was gathering together Tumbler, Boots, and the other younger newsies at the house with a deck of cards. That’s where he usually went. The card games always helped distract from the thunder.

Maybe today he would see if the older boys wanted to get a game of stinko going. That way he wouldn’t lose any money, but he’d still get to spend time with the older boys.

Snipeshooter heard a laugh to his left and smiled. Jake had already succeeded in making Pie Eater feel good enough to laugh when it usually took a lot longer. Snipeshooter pulled a match across the rough wood of his bedside table to light it and held the flame to the candle wick. Near by, Jack was talking to Snaps, inviting him to come down from his bunk and join the boys. Tumbler ran over to Skittery and pulled him into the younger boy’s (plus Bumlet’s) card game so he wouldn’t have to face the storm alone.

“Ow!” Snipeshooter yelped, sticking his fingers in his mouth and cursing himself for being careless and getting distracted.

“You better not’ve burned your fingers tryin’ to light one of my cigars,” Racetrack threatened, not bothering to open his eyes. Snipeshooter hadn’t even noticed him wake up.

“It was a candle, not one a your cigars,” he retorted. Race cracked an eye open to make sure he wasn’t getting the wool pulled over them.

“Good.” He sighed and hauled himself into a sitting position, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “How’s everyone?”

“Snitch, Pie Eater, Skittery, and all the little kids seem okay, but it looks like one of Blink’s bad days. Mush’s got ‘im.”

“What about Crutchy?” Racetrack asked. Snipeshooter turned to look at the cripple. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, talking to Jack who, being the leader that he was, always tried to touch base with everyone during storms.

“Looks like his regular self.”

Racetrack nodded, then stood and stretched. Snipeshooter could hear his back crack over the patter of the storm.

“Yer gettin’ old, Race.”

“You’ll get here someday, kid. Shut your trap.” Racetrack reached forward and smacked him good naturedly on the back of his head as he got a cigar out of the drawer and lit it on the candle.

“You gonna start cards?” Snipe asked.

“Why?”

“Cause I wanna play so long I don’t hafta worry about losing all my money.”

Racetrack cracked a smile and ruffled Snipeshooter’s hair affectionately. Snipe hated it when he did that, because it made him feel like a kid and he _wasn’t_ , but Racetrack had been spending more and more time in Brooklyn after the strike and Snipeshooter kind of missed him, so he let it slide.

“Come on then. Grab a few decks and we’ll see if we can get some others to start stinko.”

Five minutes later, Snipeshooter, Racetrack, and eight other newsies were sitting in a circle in the middle of the lodging house floor. Some of the bunks and various articles of clothing had been cleared away to make room, and the circle was big enough that Snipe could fit in it if he laid down and stretched out, which would make the game hard if there was a lot of action at the opposite end, but he didn’t mind. That’s part of what made it fun.

Each newsie had his own deck of cards and shuffled it while the rules were briefly reviewed by Snoddy (which was extremely confusing and not helpful at all), then they gave Racetrack time to crack his knuckles before the fast-paced game was underway.

“Crutchy, you can play your three over there.”

“No I can’t, whaddya trying to pull?!”

“Get your hands away from my cards!”

“You smell worse than both the Delancey's combined.”

“Ha! My card was there first! Take it back!”

“STINKO! In your face, ya bums!”

“But I only have one card left!” Jake wailed.

“Too bad, Swifty won.” There were some dark mutterings and curses said, but it was all in good fun. The cords were sorted and passed back out, and even more newsies joined in the next round.

“Three, two, one, go!”

“Boots, get your elbow out of my face!”

“Hey Snaps, play yer ace for me, would ya?”

“Not on your life!”

“That’s cold. Colder than the Central Park lake in the middle of winter.”

“Speakin’ of which, anyone gonna help me soak Blink for throwin’ my hat in last January?”

“I’m standing right here, Skittery.”

“Oh hey Blink. Didn’t realize you was up.”

“You want in next round?” Snipeshooter asked, taking his eyes off the game for half a second, just long enough for someone to call “Stinko!” At least half the newsies swore and at least three fourths threw down their cards in disgust. Racetrack just looked extremely smug.

Snipeshooter thought he might have heard some thunder, but it was hard to tell will all of the talking and shouting. Maybe he was just imagining it.

They dealt everyone in again and the game began, this time naming Itey as the winner. By the end of that round, every newsie in the lodging house was either part of the game or watching. It was the first time since the strike that the lodging house newsies had really been all together, as a full family. These days Jack was always visiting the Jacobs’, Racetrack was always at Sheepshead or visiting Spot, and everyone else was in their separate groups. But never during thunderstorms. That was a time together that never got missed. Even Kloppman joined in, bearing a few pots of coffee (the entire lodging house erupted into cheers) and an amused smile as he watched his boys play the game he first taught them.

“Racetrack, one of your cigars is under my pillow right now.”

“Kid, if you ain’t lying, after the game I’ll soak you. If you’re lying, too.”

“Come on, Race. Is that any way to talk to a child?”

“Stinko! And I ain’t a child!” Snipeshooter yelled, grinning triumphantly. Racetrack looked down at the eight in his hand and the seven lying right in front of him.

“Oh I see,” he said sourly. “A distraction tactic. Not bad, kid.”

“Thanks,” Snipe grinned. “And the cigar ain’t under my pillow anymore. It’s in my pocket.”

Racetrack turned a shade of red and lunged at the laughing boy, tackling him to the ground. These were the good times, the memories that would blur together but that Snipeshooter wouldn’t forget. Stealing Racetrack’s cigars and beating the older boys at cards were just part of him, and the realization that there was no more thunder, just a steady pit pat of rain on the roof lost among the laughs and shouts inside, wasn’t something that he consciously noticed, but as the sun was supposed to be climbing in the sky and they stayed together, not caring that they were missing the morning edition he couldn’t be more thankful.

**Author's Note:**

> Stinko is a very popular game with my family. It's very fun and can be very aggressive.  
> I can't write conclusions. It's a problem.  
> Comments and kudos are appreciated


End file.
